I headed down to the Santa Clara Microsoft Store this morning after hearing about the Windows Phone challenge last night. For those not familiar, anyone who completes a task faster than a Windows Phone on their own smart phone can win a $1000 Special Edition Laptop assuming they meet some standard terms and conditions. Those who “get smoked” by a Windows Phone, have the opportunity to trade in their existing device for Windows Phone.

After signing a waiver agreeing to let Microsoft use a photo of me in their advertising, I got in line for the challenge. I was using a Samsung Galaxy Nexus which runs the latest Android operating system on the Verizon Wireless network. As requested, I shut down my phone and powered it on in front of an employee when it was my turn. (I’m assuming they don’t want anyone pre-launching any apps in advance.)

The Microsoft Store employee I was up against then explained the selected challenge. Her exact words were the following: “bring up the weather of two different cities.” The one who could do that first would win. I felt like I struck gold since I knew I already had two weather widgets on my home screen: one for my current location (San Jose, CA) and another for Berkeley, CA.

After a three-second count down, I hit the power button on my phone and said “DONE!” out loud. I had disabled the lock screen entirely, which is a rather awesome out-of-the-box feature of Android that takes you straight to the home screen with a single push of the power button. I didn’t even need to touch the screen, since the two weather widgets were already there.

My opponent finished a split-second later. She had two live tiles on her home screen displaying the weather of two different cities as well. Why does it take longer on Windows Phone? She had to perform two actions. First, she hit the power button to turn on the screen. Second, she had to swipe away the lock screen. That’s pretty much as fast as it gets on that platform. Windows Phone takes two interactions. Android takes just one.

I excitedly thought I won out of pure luck. However, I was quickly told that I lost. I asked for a reason and was told Windows Phone won because “it displays the weather right there.” That was rather unclear. I showed her my device which also was showing off the same information with two side-by-side weather widgets on the center home screen. After pressing for a better reason, I was told that Windows Phone won “just because.”

After trying to push for a real answer since I clearly won the contest by their rules, another Microsoft Store employee (possibly a manager) came by after noticing me asking more questions. Thinking on his feet, he quickly gave a ridiculous out-of-thin-air reason that I need to display the weather of different cities in different states and that “my phone could not do that”.

I calmly and politely tried pointing out that I was absolutely never told about having to show off two different states, but at this point I realized there was no point in even attempting to argue since the Microsoft Store employees clearly had no intention of even potentially discussing the possibility of considering me the winner.

I was then asked to snap a photo in front of a sign that read along the lines of “My Android was smoked by Windows Phone” before leaving the store.

I was quite excited to take the challenge, but left the Microsoft Store in distaste. I sure hope the purpose of this marketing ploy is to attract new customers by demonstrating the highlights of Windows Phone, not frustrating them instead. If anyone from Microsoft would like to have a rematch, I would be happy to smoke a Windows Phone with Android, again.

This is perhaps because you “altered” the default behaviour of the Android OS by installing a 3rd party app to disable the lock screen. You should have informed the Micosoft rep prior to the test to and agreed in advance about the conditions of the test.

Yes but the whole point of this challenge is that you shouldn’t need apps for simple basic tasks – most things like that are built into the OS of Windows Phone 7, and that is what this challenge has always been about.

I agree that this person should have won the challenge, I have seen a bunch of people that did win even in Microsoft’s own official ‘Smoked’ videos – they’ve never said it was 100% perfect at beating every phone – so I don’t agree with people calling Microsoft out on lying or cheating. This is just one instance at one store.

I may be mistaken, but I don’t see that anywhere in the description of the contest. Regardless, using apps is an important facet of any mobile device. If a user buys a phone only to find there is very little aftermarket app support I’m going to be sorely disappointed when my favorite app is released for iOS and Android, but not my device. Just ask Blackberry or Symbian users…

This may be one instance at one store, but the store and the employees are representatives of the company. If they do something (especially management), then the company is doing it. Unless Microsoft does something to make it right, they are endorsing their employee’s actions, as well.

I just remember the way which Bill Gates was unhappy about copying his programming codes, when he was young. I dont have problem with that. I really was thinking the Windows phone is a good OS. But at this moment I just saw the greedy and stupid face of Microsoft employees. I still waiting to hear that you have received the prize, not just a re-match offer.

There is a huge difference between Microsoft as a company and a few employees at a Microsoft store. I am 99% positive that if a higher up member of the MS team had been there the situation would’ve been different. WP7.5 is a great OS and is leaps and bounds ahead of WM6.5.

People can be greedy. But I don’t see how that applies. The Employee wouldn’t benefit or loose out from being beaten in this challenge. I fear that there is more going on here than a simple misunderstanding and I also feel that Microsoft wouldn’t respond with “Windows Phone won ‘just because’.” It’s not the new way the MS do things and it certainly sounds more like something an individual (who may represent the company) would say and not the sentiment of the whole company. Tarring a company with the actions of one staff member isn’t very forward thinking.

I think the argument here is one of ignorance. of course, why do we need apps? awfully convenient to sort ‘apps’ (or better known as the driving force between iOS and Android) when a new fledgling mobile OS has VERY FEW apps (relatively speaking). Give me a break. MSFT is going out of there way to find and train devs to build apps for their new platform. Absolutely dubious to then disregard them for very limited inline apps.

Recommend you read the “rules” as established by MS.
The authors method was allowed under the terms of the agreement.
What is more disconcerting, is that this is not the first incident where MS reps change rules on the fly.

Given that they can’t seem to sell the phones, you’d think they’d be a little less precious about giving them away. The obvious question: if you get one of the phones, how easy is it to reflash it with a real OS, e.g. Cyanogen Mod?

Probably has something to do with the fact that Microsoft isn’t paying the geeks at the retail shops to sell their phones. Apple has a vested interest, so it’s a ‘no brainer’ for the Apple Store employees. But, the big box and phone store guys are only going to sell products where they get a commission. What? You thought it was because they ‘believed’ in the products? And, who do you think pays better? Yep, that’s right – Apple and Google. Once Microsoft gets there payment structure in place, the market will change. Just follow the money…

Haha. I love the Windows Phone user experience. It has an edge over Android in many areas. However, there are many things it can’t do just yet that Android excels with. I was an iOS user before heading to Android. I always keep moving onto the next best thing, just like everyone else.

It’s not a third party app. Android allows you to disable the lock in your security settings. It’s a feature of the phone. Unless you’re going to argue that using features of your phone that are simply better constitutes cheating I don’t really know what point you’re trying to make here…

All are not but most. Example all Google services and apps are third party (from Google) and does not belong to Android. So GMail, Talk, Maps, Google Search, Play store, Latitude, Navigation (part of Maps), Places, Voice Dialer, Play Music and Youtube are third party applications from Google.

And what Microsoft fans don’t get, is that with Android, you can replace any Android functionality as they are apps.

– Launcher is the application what is responsible to draw your start screen and application menu. It as well rules gestures, widgets, animations, icons and many of the basic functions. You are free to swap it to any other you like and if there ain’t what you like, you can even with few launchers create your own with scripts and custom graphics. The limit is just your skills (or your wallet if you pay someone to do it for you) and your imagination.
– Dialer what gives you the call dialer, call logs, favorites.
– Address book, gives exactly what it says. You can have separated address book and dialer.
– Messages gives you wanted SMS/MMS functionality. Themes, fonts, type, look, functionality, gestures….
– Keyboard, just switch any what you like to use and what fills to your needs. Used you your phone with one hand, two hands, in potrait mode, landscape mode, with full qwerty, T9 or compact style, with multi language prediction, with hand drawing (chinese/japanese etc) letters, left handed, right handed… there are dozens of features and needs what people want and have they can choose best keyboard for them without compromise.
– Lock screen, you can choose what ever you want if you are not happy with Android 5 offered default ways and simple functions like Clock, notifications and technical carrier data. But you can customize the lock screen what ever you want, again limitation is only your imagination.

There are just millions of different combinations what people can have. The only limitation is usually their imagination and knowledge from them self as they need to know what they need so they can customize Android phone just for them if needed.
No one is forcing you to have same functionality or one specific way to do things. Android gives freedom to the user to choose how to use the phone best way as the user wants. And no one else can come and judge the Android based that user phone as it is tailor-made for that specific user and it is not suppose to work with anyone else.

Windows Phone fans do not even know what Android is or they have never even found their own needs and habits.

And you should understand that 1) is what was used, simply NONE. So when you press powerbutton, volume rocker or physical buttons (depending phone models) your screen is turn on.

But even so, the situation would be a win for Android as you can place those weather widgets to lock screen so you do not need to even unlock the phone with any mentioned way (2-5) if you have lock screen enabled.

The Microsoft sales persons use modified metro screens and settings, with super fast WLAN network in use and pre-defined dictionaries and they have been trained to do everything as quickly as possible just for those specific tasks.

And now you say that Android users should not be allowed to customize their phones for needs? That is just stupid!

Oh, sorry. I forgot that Windows Phone fans trusts these competitions that they are fair and reasonable. :D

When Microsoft did the Smoked challenge in Las Vegas, both MS and the challenger established a connection to the same WLAN. I’d be surprised if this wasn’t the case for store challenges as well because it’s not the network that’s in question, but rather the phone.

The store should have explained the rules (way better than they did), drawn another challenge and done a rematch. Or they should have just said okay, you win and your name is in the drawing for the laptop.

“said “DONE!” out loud. I had disabled the lock screen entirely, which is a rather awesome *OUT-OF-THE-BOX* feature of Android that takes you straight to the home screen with a single push of the power button”

Out of the box feature means it’s default, not a third party app. Nor are the weather icons.

“This is perhaps because you “altered” the default behaviour of the Android OS by installing a 3rd party app to disable the lock screen. You should have informed the Micosoft rep prior to the test to and agreed in advance about the conditions of the test.”

What a load of crap, did the MS rep tell them they had the challenge rigged by having 2 live tiles pre-prepared ?? the MS employee always picks the test and of course have the device prepared before hand.

He didn’t “alter” the phone and there is no need for a 3rd party app to disable the lock screen.

All Android phones I’ve used/seen give you the ability to turn on/off the lock screen straight out of the box. It’s under “settings” then “location & security”. No need to install a 3rd party app (if any exist?).

They also allow you to choose a password with letters/numbers or draw a pattern on the screen if you chose to turn on the password feature. As well has setting when the phone “goes to sleep” which enables the screen lock feature (if you have enabled it). Mine goes from Never to :30 seconds all the way to 30 minutes of phone/screen inactivity.

Most newer Androids also allow you to decide which apps are stored on the phone and which are stored on your memory card, making the boot up process as fast as possible, no need to root/3rd party apps.

Do other phones not offer this?

Having said that, I’ve heard good things about the Windows phones but can’t see myself leaving Android right now. Having rooted my phone and dumped the Sprint ware (NASCAR app and stuff) was enough to make the phone extremely fast. Grab a custom rom to make the 4g work better/more consistent and I’m more then happy with my 14 month old phone.

I went from Blackberry to Android and have never been happier. I might test out the Windows phone when the new LTE phones from Sprint come out.

Oh, I’m really sorry to hear about this. I just remember the way which Bill Gates was unhappy about copying his programming codes, when he was young. I dont have problem with that. I really was thinking the Windows phone is a good OS. But at this moment I just saw the greedy and stupid face of Microsoft employees. I still waiting to hear that you have received the prize, not just a re-match offer.

He did not install a 3rd party app to disable the lock screen, it’s a standard feature offered in ICS. Not sure if it’s offered in previous versions of Android, although I’m pretty sure it is. He won fair and square, that Microsoft store sucks.

those who are smart will take the printed rules in their hand. so if they change any rules, you can point that all out. i lost a contest to yesterday and it was bit pathetic. I won because they mispoke the task. I did the task they asked me to do which was upload a facebook cover photo. they instead just put up a profile photo. they did the profile photo task faster than me. it took me a bit longer to do cover photo. however when complete i found out from another guy standing next to me (we went to go look at phones on display) that the windows phone does not even have a way to set a cover photo. so I won at what they asked to me to do, but they would not agree and said I lost.

record the contest too if you think you can win. i used droid bionic for anyone wondering. not the best phone, but good enough for me for now.

First, let me say I am a proud WP7 user. However, MSFT is not wise to use the weather challenge at all because they can game the system themselves by pre-pinning Live Tiles. The other issue is that such a task is uncommon and not that useful in my opinion. It’s definitely not the greatest strength of Live Tiles. So, MSFT should own up to the loss and taste their own medicine especially against an altered Android OS (similar to effects of pinning Live Tiles in advance). Bottom line, it’s a pointless challenge, MSFT should suck it up and Android should not encourage their users to bypass the lock screen (if security is priority for Android…I hope)

they may have ran out of units or had quota of how many they can give out. this was posted in afternoon, so i doubt all laptops were won already.

also i have android and i often turn of scren lock enitrely when going on long bike ride, jogging, or sport stuff. very nice to quickly tap and see what is going on. i use endomondo for tracking gps of runs. very nice to just tap and see current pace, speed, distance and everything. no need to use unlock screen.

i use pin code on most apps with sensitive info any-ways. also if i loose phone i have lookout which will lock phone remotely or do full wipe if i can no relocate it. but usually i do have lock screen, but just saying there are reasons it is nice to have it unlock quickly.

Furthermore, they didn’t really buy it, they stole it. They allowed Xerox to invest in the company, and part of the terms was that Xerox had to show Jobs and crew some of their newest tech. Xerox resisted, but eventually agreed, and so Jobs and his posse stole their ideas and made them their own. To Apple’s credit (can’t believe I’m saying that), they did execute the idea in a far better way, but they still stole it…along with the idea for a GUI, windows, etc.

Apple licensed tech from Xerox. They did not STEAL it. Have you ever seen what was produced at PARC? Have you ever seen the phones that were available before the iPhone? Have you ever seen a Prada? Have you actually looked at the dates of release vs. announcement for the Prada vs. the iPhone?

@Hobies, This post is not about windows computer, but about Windows Phone, which is arguably quite good and if given to a Windows hater who has never seen or heard about the WP OS, saying that this is a new OS made by some other company, that windows hater will praise the Windows phone. 9 out of 10 times, I can guarantee.

Tried it, annoyed the crap out of me. Couldn’t manage a simple task as printing a file from a USB stick. Apparently Apple are too good to support the FAT32 standard used by nearly every portable device out there.

Not sure if serious or troll. Mac’s can read and write to FAT32 drives. I believe OSX uses a UNIX kernel and FAT filesystem is a UNIX legacy format. NTFS is the windows filesystem. In fact by default, ipods, iphones etc are all using FAT32. And FAT32 is actually a poor filesystem for a desktop because files must be less than 4gb

Actually, I’m typing this from a Macbook Pro running the Windows 8 consumer preview. I also own an iPad. I used to own an iPhone. I swapped my iPhone for WP7 (Samsung Focus) last year because–guess what!–Windows Phone provides a vastly (and I mean VASTLY) superior user experience.

More, I use Windows 7 90% of the time on my Macbook Pro, though lately I’ve been spending a bit more time in Windows 8. Once that OS matures, I’ll use it full time because, like with WP7, the user experience just plain blows Mac OSX out of the water.

Only Mac fanboys think that owning Apple’s mediocre products constitutes superiority. News: it doesn’t. In point of fact, one of the first things I had to do when I got my MBP was upgrade the cheap garbage Hitachi 5400 RPM hard drive Apple puts in them with a decent Seagate Momentus XT hybrid SSD/HDD drive. Apple hardware is, I hate to break it to you, just your same old PC hardware in a snazzy shell. End of story.

You’re an idiot and a liar. Every single component on a Mac isn’t absolute top notch of course, but every time I’ve specced out a machine of similar capabilities it was nearly as expensive as the mac and didn’t have all the features that made the mac nice (e.g. laptop mouse).

Agreed. I did a comparison when I was looking at buying a new computer between Dell and Mac, and then how much it would cost to buy all the parts and build it myself. Using the same parts on Dell and Mac, the Dell desktop was much cheaper. I then found all the components on newegg, and found I could build essentially the same desktop with an even better case, for approximately half the price of ordering prebuilt from Dell. In summary, Mac was way more expensive for the same hardware.

@Foo: Is Jason an idiot and a liar, or does his experience just not mirror your own? There is quite a distinction there. The truth is, many people have had the same, or similar, experience to Jason, and the fact that you take his criticisms personally (which, unless you are a part owner of Apple, seems completely bizarre) does not alter that fact in any way.

OSX is about as out of date as OS9 was in late 1999. Windows 7 came out and I haven’t looked back. Apple waits too long between OS versions and while their competitors come up with better ways to do things Apple will generally rest on the laurels. I’ll most likely be back when the release the followup to OSX but until then I’ll stick with the OS that lets me get the most work done in the shortest amount of time.

I’m a wp7 user and fan. I also like this contest they have, because of how fair Ben Rudolph (the original smokedybwindowsphone guy) played it.

From your description though, i DO think you should have won that contest. and personally, i think that it’s the employee and the manager’s fault for not accepting your win. What’s important to note is that the blame should really be on those two people’s shoulders, and not completely on Microsoft’s name.

great post Daniel but people rather blame than get a solution and this is specially when people go there with the intention to beat Microsoft and at the same time hate on them. If this writer would have taken his article and wrote to ben the pc guy he would have at least received a Thank You, have a Windows Phone. But it’s typical of Android fanbois to go hating on Windows phone these days. Microsoft makes awesome product, heck i don’t know of any other company that makes such awesome products but they still get hated. Tell me which innovation Apple created? none! they just refined the OS which is great of them and they deserve the credit. Also the retina display is pretty neat but other than that things like touch were already being developed of if anyone could remember most phones where going towards the touch style way before the iphone came out. Android has hardly any innovation since it’s a straight copy of windows mobile and the iphone.

Um, define computer. I mean we could talk about ancient methods of tracking stars and retaining the information it back to about 600BC or difference engines made in the early 1700s or even mid 1800s. That stated I don’t think from your statement that is what you mean. If you want to look at a “Personal Computer”, the ‘Simon” by Edmond Berkley (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(computer) and http://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/Simon.html) came first in 1950, but if you mean more fully like a computer we know and love today, look at the Altair 8800 (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair_8800 and http://oldcomputers.net/altair.html) that came out in 1975. The Apple Computer/ Apple 1, the first apple computer, came out in 1976 (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I and http://oldcomputers.net/applei.html). Though I agree this is one invention that they made that wasn’t a modification of what existed. For example if you look at the GUI, they “borrowed” that from a non-released model made by Xerox that used a mouse (same interface that was stolen by Microsoft for Windows as well) because the old Apple II’s didn’t have a GUI, just a command line interface. The MP3 player (by companies like Archos and Diamond among others) was out well before iPod’s existed, they just made a better interface. Other smart phones existed prior to the iPhone (such as Palm, Windows and Blackberry) and apps existed on phones prior to them being on the iPhone, it just wasn’t as nearly organized though (no app store to this extent). That stated the App Store was new to phones when they made it, however they used the model made by many Linux distros (like Gentoo) but for a phone, so it wasn’t FULLY unique. Also, tablets existed before the iPad, heck they had to buy the rights to the name iPad (and recently violated parts of that agreement as noted here http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/29/business/ipad-china-lawsuit-explainer/index.html). Not trying to say you’re wrong, just saying the waters are grey and Apple has made a small fortune by taking a good idea and making it better and more streamlined. To try to discount what they do would be ridiculous. Just remember don’t tell people to look things up when you incorrectly state things as well.

Apple did not invent the PC as IBM did at 1981 with their IBM 5150 model what was “IBM PC” and registered trademark (PC) to them. Before PC there were personal computers and first one was “Simon” from 1949 what was mentioned to be a “personal computer” (PC was never used before IBM registered it 1981 for Project Chess what was 12 person and one month project to make a personal computer for IBM to compete against Apple on personal computer markets and result from that project was PC). Xerox did invent the graphical desktop user interface 1973 with Xerox Alto computer and windowing environment 1979 with Xerox Star computer.

But Douglas Engelbart presented 1968 a mouse.
But 1963 Ivan Sutherland presented the Sketchpad what was first SVG graphical system with unlimited space and 3D modeling.

And search from internet with keywords “IBM Project Chess” and go library to find out computer magazines and news papers from those years and you can find the truth that IBM invented the PC (personal computer with open architecture) and it ruled the personal computer markets with it and today all PC’s are descended from IBM PC and evolved away from it from most parts (PCI, PCI-E, SATA, etc… only a x86 architecture is same) while Apple Mac has always been own line of personal computer a side of PC line of personal computers but when Apple switched from PPC to x86 they toke one step closer to PC but still are at least as much different than todays “PC’s” are from PC = very very much.

Apple invented Macintosh, what was truly a awesome personal computer, as PC came with command line user interface (PC-DOS from Microsoft and sold separated as MS-DOS with PC-clones) at that time and presented amazing features like graphical user interface and mouse for avarage consumer. Even that Apple brought inventions what Xerox, IBM, and many other were invented or developed, Apple invention was to bring them customers (even that price tag was high when compared to PC).

But Apple have had own inventions. Like touch screen fax and phone from 1983. Or first “personal digital assistant” aka PDA called “Newton” from 1987. And it is first commercial tablet, with amazing features even todays standards. (Todays smart phones are combination of mobile phone and PDA so Apple invented the most important part of the smart phone).
Apple as well invented the graphical trash can to graphical user interface. As well they did bring the global menubar.

Apple has done lots of small inventions but Apple has never invented personal computer or the PC.
The greatest thing what Apple has ever done, is that they bring high quality hardware and software to consumers with cheap prices and they design all what they sell to be as good as possible they can.

It should be noted that Douglas Engelbart was a completely amazing inventor and visionary. The man invented the mouse, the whole idea of a GUI, networking – and not just networking, but the idea of video/audio conferencing via IP. Also, the poor man never made any money (beyond his salary) for his innovations. You should all send him a thank you card.

‘He never received any royalties for his mouse invention. During an interview, he says “SRI patented the mouse, but they really had no idea of its value. Some years later it was learned that they had licensed it to Apple for something like $40,000.”‘

Yeah, this guy and the one who posted the Mac as the first PC are either just trolling or feeling the need to defend Apple by claiming things they never did.

Apple hasn’t actually created a product type, ever. Lots of companies don’t, so it isn’t a bad thing. Not sure why they feel threatened by that. I hate Apple immensely, but one thing they do well is take existing products and make them more desirable. It is actually WHY I hate them mainly, but that is besides the point.

History isn’t necessarily defined by original inventions but rather by perfection of those inventions. James Watt did not invent the steam engine, but built the best steam engine at the time. Henry Ford did not invent the internal combustion engine, or the automobile, or the assembly line. Fame has eluded countless explorers, inventors and theorists, not because they were second upon the scene of something revolutionary, but because the chips didn’t fall their way. You cannot dismiss Apple simply because they weren’t original, certainly they were innovative. Perhaps you can dismiss Apple because it is over-hyped, and over-priced.

Wow, blinded by fanaticism much? The guy was bashing android users, not apple users. Only to a fanatic does “they just refined the OS which is great of them and they deserve the credit. Also the retina display is pretty neat…” mean dismissal.

Cool story bro….it is so cool that Google made ICS EVEN LESS secure than before so you can win prizes now. I hope Microsoft awards you the prize in retrospect so you can show how that everyone should disable their lock screen…the social hackers of the world will rejoice.

Uhh… the “lock screen” doesn’t open up the phone for hacking… it prevents the touch screen from allowing input while in the “locked” state – preventing things like butt dialing, and deleting apps on accident.

Also, anyone who says “cool story bro” is usually fairly techtarded, so I guess no one should be surprised that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Actually lock screen idea is to lock the screen from accidental touch AND from others to accessing your phone.

People should understand that there is lock or no lock. And lock has multiple levels and technics to offer phone locking functionality. Like just touch screen lock (open with swipe or hardware switch) or system lock (encrypted data isn’t decrypted until valid pattern, PIN or password is given).

I noticed long time ago that because I do not have any important data on my phone and I don’t borrow it to anyone else and I keep it with me almost all the time, I can keep screen lock disabled so I can just press any button on phone and I get it open right away. But then when I start storing important data, then I will enable at least pattern lock (what you can not brake by watching display reflection as no one inputs the pattern and then leave the phone on table. As you start using your phone, you swipe away the pattern right away. So unless you are person who just wants to open pattern locked phone and leave it on table, then you are in problems with PIN codes as well (even they can be 4-14 letters long) as those can bee seen as well or any gesture done for picture lock (touch nose, connect heads and swipe arm as example).

I also think you won this challenge. Full disclosure; I own a Windows Phone and I think they are great and fast. I think they have like a 88% + success rate of getting tasks done quickly. But as far as the rules you heard, you should have won.

However, I think that if you were allowed to disable the lock screen, MCSFT should be able to say that next time both phones need to start at soft reset:) It takes forever for Android/Iphones to boot up compared to WP7.

That’s because Android speeds after some constant use since it caches the most recently used apps. Things are slower after a reboot sine the OS has to open every app from the scratch. I don’t think the Windows Phone I was up against was even was rebooted right before the challenge.

I wouldn’t say so, as my Android phone does reboot in 5 seconds, even after soft reset. You need to override the default functionality by disabling caching so then the reboot takes about 20 seconds.

The competition is fair as long as you use any means possible to get your phone tailored for your needs. If someone wants to compete “How fast you can do X with your phone”, then it is allowed to tailor phone to do that quickly. As every user has different needs. Example for me, I don’t even have facebook or twitter accounts. But I do have google+ account and I don’t need to do anything to get photo uploaded to google+ in privat settings and I can later (or same time as photo is uploading) add comment. So with single photo click and typing comment I have the photo uploaded. But real life situation is for most people that they want to take photo and then focus back to situation what is happening. No one starts sending photo to facebook just to beat 5 second barrier to get photo to online.

Example situation, your son/daughter is blowing birthday cake candles and you take photo from it. After you have taken the photo, you will never stare your phone and start typing “My son/daughter blowing X birthday cake candles” for facebook upload.
No, you will take the photo and then you will focus to your son/daughter and other members what is happening. Otherwise you miss the situation if you start using your phone. It doesn’t matter are you done in 5 seconds as you have already missed those moments.
The wise parent does that after taking photo, she/he focus to situation and then later when there is time, uploads photos to facebook (even hours later).

You could put all kinds of stipulations on it. How about the fact that 90% of WP7 users don’t have TWO weather tiles on their home screen? The whole point is that it’s rigged in MS’s favor, and it backfired on them this time. They thought it was already sufficiently rigged, but someone beat them in their own game.

Also, I’d take that challenge of a soft reset. My Android phone starts up very quickly.

OK. I am a WP7 user and a MS fan but no. This is just stupid. Here are the rules peeps, read through and prosper. If you loose per these, then great. If you loose for something NOT clarified here, that’s a breach of contract between the obligor and the “entry.”

Per these rules, If you do not have a rooted phone and your apps are all publicly available on your phone’s native app marketplace and you go faster they have no claim. It’s in the rules black and white and if you have the cash and want to go at them for the principle, you could lawyer up. However, if anything is homebrewed or hacked dont bother unless you want to “loose” and recycle your phone as “…The decisions of the judges are final and binding.”

“Douche” simply means shower. Feminine hygiene products called a “feminine shower” or “douche feminine” were only made if France for a long time. When they were imported to english speaking countries, they didn’t change the labels on the bottles/boxes. Now the term “Douche” has come to mean “feminine hygiene shower” in english. Or in slang a pejorative indicating someone who might be placed in a similar situation – how’s that bad?

Case 1: If you did not disable the lock screen, then you would have to go through the same number of steps. And Windows Phone has Live Tiles which would kill your chance of winning. Even I have two tiles showing weather of two cities. It would ultimately come down to who can slide faster and I honestly think most android devices slide unlocking is more complicated than WP.

2) Yup, that’s the point. This specific contest wasn’t probably the best idea. I managed to win by their own rules. For instance, I just heard from a friend that HP webOS (Palm) devices display weather on the lock screen without any third-party customization.

androids also display weather on the lock screen via a plethora of apps. Additionally, you can have 2 weather widgets on your homescreen with each set to a different city.

all that aside, it’s a silly contest. I’m sure WP7’s are cool but the fact that you can’t use a rooted phone, or a phone using non-market apps, to compete with their own is testament to the particular feature inferiorities built in to the WP design. My rooted Galaxy S uses an SD card reformatted to Ext4, which cut my boot time to less than half of the original speed, and load times in general are improved. Microsoft’s philosophy is “thou shalt not improve feature set of your phone beyond our approval,” while Android’s philosophy is “have fun”

I am very certain that he was not saying that WP has a weak Dev base at all. I mean that homebrew homescreen app is amazing. This is not an article saying that he does not like Windows phone (just look at his personal website @ http://sahaskatta.com/ ), it is one saying that if you have a promotion and the rules don’t account for every little permutation that could happen show that you are the better man and honor your rules and terms.

I love my Windows Phone but I know it’s not perfect. No phone is. There are just things that Android can do that It cant, but I would never trade my phone for anything. I still enjoy beating my friends on social networks though.

Uhmm. why not? Did you know there are a plethora of Android apps that allow you to place widgets ON your lockscreen? so all you have to do is hit power, and even without unlocking the phone, you could show two widgets set for different cities in different states. Yes I’m sure Windows phones are beautifully blazingly fast, but as long as I don’t have the ability to do what I want with them, how I want to do it with them, then I am not interested. Considering the power of phones nowadays, selling me a phone that I can’t FULLY customize to fit my needs, down to installing a new ROM, is the same thing as selling me a laptop without giving me the root password so if I want to I can install my own apps on it instead of trying to use Microsoft Paint to do the job I would normally do in Photoshop.

I use Android device as my daily device. However I’ve been pretty excited with Windows Phone and Windows 8, and learning to develop apps for them. I also have a Lumia as my test device and have been pretty satisfied with the performance.

That said, this is very shitty move by the Microsoft employee. You should really write to Microsoft, and hopefully some of the higher-ups will realize what a bad publicity they are creating with this sort of “challenge”.

The “Smoked By Windows Phone” campaign is a really good stroke of PR… but only because of its informal nature.

Now that they’ve introduced significant prizes to it, they have to make it a formal, rigid thing, with rules and regulations up the wazoo to ensure they don’t give away a bunch of prizes to people gaming the system. Which is a shame, because all it will do is piss people off.

Using live-tile for this challenge is interesting considering the first party Weather app just got a live tile. (I don’t know what took so long.) Was that the app they used? (If you haven’t seen it, it shows only temperature, metro style condition icon, and city name, on a solid color tile, and the tile doesn’t flip at all.)